I wrote this for today’s Beyond Chron.

Yesterday’s Chronicle portrayed San Francisco as an elitist island of the fringe left – out of touch with mainstream American values.  Reporter Carla Marinucci used the recent commotion over Barack Obama’s “bitter” comment at a local fundraiser to explain how the right uses San Francisco to hurt Democrats.  Even as polls out of Pennsylvania show the race unchanged despite Hillary Clinton desperately pushing this issue, the Chronicle couldn’t help perpetuating the stereotype that we are the “land of fruits and nuts.”  Marinucci did not quote any San Franciscans for her article – except for disgraced Newsom aide and Clinton supporter Peter Ragone, who repeated the line that only conservative places like the Central Valley matter in California politics.  Does the New York Times politically marginalize its hometown, because that is exactly what the Chronicle did.

Without even waiting to hear what working-class voters in Pennsylvania thought about Obama’s infamous statement, the media pronounced that it changed the dynamic of the presidential race – with some comparing it to the Jeremiah Wright controversy.  Because Clinton and John McCain both attacked Obama for being “elitist” and “condescending,” the press allowed the story to run far longer than it should.  And because Obama said it at a fundraiser in San Francisco, Clinton made sure to remind voters about that fact.

So what does the San Francisco Chronicle – our hometown newspaper of record – do when the City gets smeared by politicians of both parties?  Write a puff analysis which reinforces the notion that we make Democrats look bad – a place where national politicians come to campaign at their peril.  Marinucci could have mentioned that the fundraiser was in Presidio Heights – one of our most exclusive (and conservative) neighborhoods – rather than tar the whole City with an “elitist” smear.  Instead, she quotes Pat Buchanan as proof that Obama really screwed up with that statement.

It’s not the first time that the right has attacked “San Francisco Values” as a means of marginalizing Democrats.  But San Francisco values are mainstream American values.  We were one of the first cities to pass a domestic partnership law – “civil unions” that even George Bush and Dick Cheney now find acceptable.  In 2006, we were the first place that required employers to provide paid sick leave – and now other cities have since followed our lead.  We’re a city of creative entrepreneurs who have started cutting-edge businesses that are household names.  We have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of.

But Marinucci didn’t bother to interview any San Franciscans for her piece – let alone ask working-class folks in Pennsylvania if they were offended by Obama’s remarks – except for one local politico: Peter Ragone, Mayor Gavin Newsom’s former press secretary, who (according to an earlier Chronicle story) helped the Clinton campaign’s media team in Texas.  Marinucci did not disclose Ragone’s conflict-of-interest when she quoted his take on the situation.

Obama’s statement, said Ragone in the Chronicle, “sounded like someone running for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, not President.  The Democratic Party should have learned you have to respect people’s cultural experiences in order to get their votes.  If Democrats want to win in California, they have to win in the Central Valley, the Inland Empire and the I-80 corridor. If you truly feel that way about people in those places, you’re just not going to get their votes.”

It’s precisely such divisive talk that prevents Democrats from truly standing up for what we believe in – and depresses San Franciscans into believing that our values are not the values of mainstream America.  It is why liberals then allow Democrats to get away with taking offensive policy positions – all in the name of being electable to the average swing voter.  The Left has been so haunted by the ghost of George McGovern for the past 35 years that we’ve lost all will to believe that real change can happen at the ballot box.

Was Obama’s statement culturally insensitive?  Let’s take a closer look at his exact words, and see why it was not disrespectful to the swing-state working-class voter:

“You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them … And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

To suggest that working-class Pennsylvanians who’ve had their jobs shipped overseas are “bitter” is not condescending – it’s simply stating the truth.  As Randy Shaw wrote this week, if Clinton believes that they are not bitter, she is almost as delusional as George W. Bush.  And when Fox News actually interviewed such voters, they pretty much confirmed that it’s true.

The tricky part, of course, was for Obama to suggest that they “cling to guns or religion.”  But he never suggested that guns or religion are therefore bad.  What he meant to say is that during hard times, people stick with what they are familiar with and where they take comfort.  Conversely, they also mistrust the unfamiliar – people who don’t look like them, people who come from other countries, and coastal elitists.  It’s the politics of fear – and when voters are anxious, they become vulnerable to such appeals.

Could such an honest assessment hurt Obama?  Maybe a little, but anyone who believes that it rises to the level of the Jeremiah Wright controversy – where Obama’s pastor was caught on YouTube saying “God damn America” – is completely delusional.  And Obama did a stellar job handling that situation, with the most eloquent speech he has given in his entire career – where he effectively said that we must have an honest dialogue about race in this country.  But after the “bitter” comment, the media said Obama was in trouble.

Five days later, we now have fresh polls out of Pennsylvania that show that the brouhaha had practically no effect.  A friend of mine who’s there said that it’s a bigger deal nationally than locally (even though it has been widely disseminated.)  The issue will boil over, although we can expect that Republicans will try to make hay out of it in the general election.  By then, people won’t care – and the voters who will care would not vote Democratic anyway.

It’s bad enough that San Francisco – and everyone who lives here – got dragged into the mud with this story, just because the media won’t admit that the Clintons are history.  But for the Chronicle to pile on when it’s our hometown newspaper was embarrassing.  If the New York Times reported that voters in the Big Apple were out of touch with mainstream America, there would have been an outcry.  As residents of San Francisco, we deserve better from our local newspaper of record.

EDITOR’S NOTE: In his spare time and outside of regular work hours, Paul Hogarth volunteered on Obama’s field operation in San Francisco.  He also ran to be an Obama delegate to the Democratic National Convention.